Justice for Just Us

Saturday

Legislators, commissioners, and agency managers must sort fact from opinion, and act carefully and compassionately.

Public advice is often constructive, but some can be mean and resentful, often advocating so-called Christian values.

Consider two commenters at a Saline County hearing on a new jail: The Bible encourages “the rod of discipline.” Jail is “too comfortable” with three meals a day, heating and air, free medical, no work, and television.

Despite all evidence of the U.S.’s No. 1 standing as incarcerator-in-chief, the “social experiment of the past 60 years is ‘soft on criminals’ and ‘the biggest failure this country has ever seen.’ ”

Where does one respond to illogic and incitement to riot? We could dismiss them as aberrations, but they are the canary in our coal mine.

Though not as extreme, other similarly dismissive attitudes impact public policy today. Sadly, these come from public servants themselves.

Here, pity for public servants comes to a screeching halt.

Case in point: the Kansas Legislature’s last days.

Kansas Interfaith Action said, “Medicaid Expansion ……[is] a clear moral imperative and its failure to pass is not just disappointing, it’s an injustice ... Blame ... rests solely at the feet of House and Senate leadership.”

A tax cut benefiting multinational corporations passed. But the policy to help working people, supported by 70 percent of Kansans, a majority of the Legislature and the governor, cannot?